


Kaila Tabris, City Elf

by skyeward



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: City Elf Origin, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:10:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyeward/pseuds/skyeward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short stories focusing largely on the Kaila's feelings throughout the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And The Fall of House Kendells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Like dogs," she says. "Like dogs."

Kaila is a seething ball of rage in the shape of a girl. She is lovely, they say; lithe and fine-featured, with a silver tongue fit to part a king from his crown. There is always a subtle postscript, though. Whether carried on whispered words or in disapproving faces, she hears it: if only she weren’t so tall, so strong, so  _angry_.

The comments do not fall on deaf ears, but neither do they provoke the hoped-for reaction. Kaila is  _proud_  of the way she is, of the talent and strength and rich dark skin she inherited from her mother, and she  _wants_  to be angry,  _loves_  to be angry, feeds on her own anger to keep herself moving through the endless days under the thumbs of worthless human bastards. She wants to let her anger out, wants to provoke it in others, wants to kill every human she’s ever met and those she has not. She wants to be a warrior, wants to lift her knife - she hasn’t the strength for a sword, despite her rage - and carve out a place, a land, a  _home_  for elves. She wants to flee Denerim, find the legendary Dalish, and lead them in a scourge of Ferelden. What she does  _not_ want is to be a wife, a mother, a  _pretty young thing_.

She sabotages her appearance as a matter of course. At first it is only her clothes that she ruins, ensuring every dress she owns is ugly and ill-fitting with so many repairs that it is more patch than cloth. When that does not entirely put an end to unwanted remarks, she digs deeper. Only once must her cheekbones be praised in her hearing; she tattoos her face with bold black lines that rise like flames from her jawline nearly to her hairline, curving sharply around her eyes and obscuring from a casual glance the fine lines of her face. 

Her father seeks her a betrothed when she comes of age, and he is well-meaning but without the faintest comprehension of the fury that lives in his child. In his search, he extols the virtues of her features: her small, delicate nose, her slanted eyes a shade of green so dark as to be nearly black, her plump cheeks and long lashes, the vibrant red of her thick, wavy hair. She responds by painting her eyes and lips and cheeks the same flame-red as her hair. Then she shaves her head. She starts a fight and lets her opponent break her nose, then rages when the clean break heals neat and straight, with nary a bump.

Disappointed but not deterred, the elder Tabris finds her a bridegroom all the same. She fights, but love of her father blunts the edge of her rage and brings her here, to her wedding day, to the side of a man she does not want or respect or even  _like_. There is nowhere left to run, and her pulse beats in her throat like a caged bird. She wants to fight, wants to flee, wants to  _die,_  even; anything to escape a future being worn down under the well-meant weight of her husband’s disapproval like grain under a stone. For he will surely disapprove of her, even as her father - for all his love - did of her mother.

And then that damned human lordling is back, picking through the girls and women as if they are pieces of cloth laid out for his appraisal, threatening Shianni. Kaila boils over when the human approaches, when he speaks the words that others have spoken before him, when he moves to touch her. “Well-formed” he calls her, and she doesn’t even register what comes out of her mouth in response. She is rather surprised that it is words at all, rather than just spit and froth and rage.

Then she’s waking up in the castle and Nola is praying like that’s going to get her somewhere, the other girls are panicking, and Shianni is just Shianni, lovely and smiling and calm. “Such a sweet girl, that Shianni,” people - her father - used to say approvingly, and she knew that the unsaid words after were ‘ _why can’t you be more like her_?’. Shianni is angry too, angry enough to have broken a bottle over that stupid shem’s head, but Shianni is pretty and socially apt and does not hate her own face. She is not so far gone in her rage that she sabotages herself.

And Kaila loves Shianni, she truly does. Her cousin shares her hatred of the shems and stands by her like family should, tries to show her a balance between fury and sense, between hating humans and loving herself. Kaila is not a very good student, though, and sometimes she feels betrayed by Shianni’s kindness and beauty.

Later, when she is flitting through the hall, arm heavy under the weight of an unfamiliar blade and Soris at her back, she knows that she is going to kill that man, arl’s son or no, if he has so much as breathed on her cousin.

And he has. Oh, he has indeed. Kaila blacks out a little, remembering nothing of the next few minutes except Shianni’s crying face, her hiked-up skirt, and the way Vaughan’s smirk fell from his face when she shoved a stolen dagger between his ribs. Soris will tell her, later, that she goes utterly berserk, laughing like a madwoman as blood spatters her face and stains looted leather armor.

Shianni is not okay, and Kaila is not okay, but she has killed every last shem between that room and here and she offers that fact up to her cousin like a poultice. “Like dogs,” she says. “Like _dogs_.” 

And Shianni nods, and maybe someday they will both be okay again.


	2. And the Witch of the Wilds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She is Kaila and she is angry and she will not be stopped.

Kaila stomps angrily back and forth through the camp at Ostagar, glaring down anyone who so much as glances her way. She is on edge, surrounded on all sides by human soldiers, human mages - the first she has ever met - and foolish, presumptuous human quartermasters whose chests she would gladly ventilate, given the chance. She has chatted to the mages, found them more palatable than other humans, but she leaves them with confused feelings. Tranquil, they call it; she’s torn between disgust and smug pleasure at the thought of shems mutilating each other. Disgust wins when she recalls that there are elven mages subject to the same threat, and she wanders back past the mage camp in hopes of glimpsing one. She is unsuccessful.

Slowly but surely her anger, her constant companion for years uncounted, is eclipsed by an unfamiliar longing for the peace of home, for the familiar faces and sights and scents of her childhood. She is, although she would rather die than admit it, growing rapidly homesick for the muddy cobblestones, dirty faces, and drooping branches of the Alienage.

A soft whine draws her attention, brings her steps to a halt and summons her to the rough, pointed, lashed-together logs of the kennel. She has never owned a dog, despite hours of childhood prayer, but she is of Ferelden and she knows what a quality hound looks like. He is such a one, a breed she has never laid eyes on before, barrel-chested and broad-shouldered and of such a size that she could likely ride him, were she of the mind. His pain calls to her, his need overwhelming her hatred. Her resolve is only firmed after she muzzles the dog, puts her hands on him and feels the coarse hair bristling under her palms, powerful muscles rippling and deadly jaws offering her no harm.

The kennel master is polite, for a shem, and moreover he holds the key to helping the proud, suffering beast. She deals with him politely in exchange, and promises to deliver the requested flower. She will scour the Wilds if she must, bring him a hundred white-and-red blooms, if it will save the soul she feels calling to her from behind the gate.

\- - - - - - - - - -

The Wilds are something new to her, wide open spaces and hills and grass and more trees than she could count, unspoiled water and mossy rocks...and darkspawn. There are traps, and treasure, and wolves, and many, many darkspawn. The first time she sees them she feels no fear, only a cold determination as she unslings her bow and takes aim. It is her first true battle against the Blight and it is no surprise that she enjoys it, takes to it like a babe to the teat. Later the nightmares will plague her, later she will learn to fear those monstrous faces, but for the time being she is untouched by it all.

And then there is Morrigan. She is like no human Kaila has yet seen, from her boldly painted eyes - Maker, the piercing yellow of those _eyes_ \- to her confidence, her carriage, her unveiled contempt for the humans blundering through her Wilds.

She is angry like Kaila is angry, she is lovely like Shianni is lovely, but she is not meek and polite about it. She wields her beauty like a weapon, and Kaila is not certain if she wants to _touch_ Morrigan or _become_ her.

Her head is still spinning when she delivers the promised bit of flora, and she barely hears the kennel master's words except to understand that she must wait. She watches the dog resting peacefully for a moment, soothed in ways she has no words for, and finally makes her way to Duncan's fire. She will be bold, she will be strong, she will be forthright, she will stumble through the Joining in a haze, watch numbly as two men die before her, and take the cup without hesitation afterwards because she is Kaila and she is angry and she will not be stopped.

 


	3. And the Purge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A purge of the Alienage, says the bored shem guard.

_A purge of the Alienage_ , says the bored shem guard, and Kaila nearly murders him on the spot. He owes his worthless life to her dog, whose warm body against her leg is all that anchors her to reality. She stalks away, making it only a few steps before her despair turns inward. It takes all of her strength to keep from collapsing to the ground, but she will not show that weakness, not here.

 _A purge of the Alienage_. It was her, and _only_ her, and hasn't she already _paid_ her dues for avenging Shianni? Her rage, dimmed and cooled over weeks on the road, flares to new, white-hot life. She will kill them. She will kill them _all_ , slowly, and then she will piss on their corpses and feed them to the darkspawn.

 _A purge of the Alienage_. She flees camp as soon as it is made, fury eclipsing whatever progress she has made in dealing with her human companions. She cannot bear to see their faces, innocent of understanding, as she relives her mother's death over and over. In the forest alone, she finally sinks to her knees. She screams and screams and _screams_ , until her lungs burn and her throat is raw and all that comes out is a thin whine, but she does not weep.

It is Morrigan who finds her, asking cooly if she is _quite_ finished. Kaila’s hand falls to the wooden ring that was her gift, that allows Morrigan to find her wherever she may go, and she flings it at the mage with all her strength. She stalks off into the woods once more, returning to camp in the small hours of the morning and crawling directly into Morrigan's bedroll. The witch hisses her displeasure at being awoken, but yields quickly enough when Kaila’s mouth fastens on her throat.

The elf purges the last of her rage into soft white skin, taking what she gives and more besides, until she is a mottled canvas of red and black and blue, bruised and bleeding and finally, _finally_ at rest.


	4. And the Ashes of Andraste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a spirit. She knows it’s a spirit, knows that there is literally no way that Shianni could really be here.

_Did she fail Shianni?_ Kaila barely hears the question over the blood pounding in her ears - she wants to launch herself at the Guardian of the Ashes, wants to break his face in and claw out his eyes, rip his throat open. How dare he speak of Shianni as if he _knew_ her, as if he knew her _pain_?

Badger leans against her legs, the same comforting weight that has driven away many a nightmare, and she calms just a little. Did she fail Shianni? She knows, intellectually, the right answer: Vaughan was to blame for his own actions, for his own decisions, for the pain he caused. But knowing is not the same as believing, and just as she knows of Andraste but does not believe in her power, Kaila knows it was not her fault and cannot believe it.

So did she fail Shianni? Yes. In a hundred ways, a million, at an infinite number of moments from birth onwards. On that day alone she could have run faster, could have fought harder, could have slit Vaughan's throat as he lay in the dirt of the Alienage. Perhaps nothing would have changed, but at least she would have tried.

She leaves her companions behind for a moment, stalks back outside as the spirit begins to question them as well, and she stands tall against the freezing wind. She allows it to blow through her, seeping into the places inside that weep old blood and freezing them closed again. There is no time to mourn today, no tears to shed, no happy memories that rise up to soothe away her pain. The cold will have to do, for now.

\- - - - - - - - - -

By the time she stumbles back inside, finally feeling numbed inside and out, she’s very nearly hypothermic. She doesn’t care, simply strides past Alistair and Morrigan and leads the way further inside. There are riddles that she could have answered as a child - she can’t imagine anyone fails this so-called Gauntlet if the challenges are all like this. The doors swing open at the far side of the chamber and she takes a handful of careless strides in that direction before she notices the green-clad shape just beyond them.

It’s a spirit. She _knows_ it’s a spirit, knows that there is literally no way that Shianni could really be here, could really be standing there waiting for her...but her heart doesn’t care. It leaps like a deer in the woods, making her dizzy. She just stands and stares for a moment, until it turns around and addresses her. She hadn’t forgotten what Shianni looks like, but somehow the details have gotten fuzzy, the little things slipping away with time. The fullness of her lips, for example, or the exact shade of her hair and the haphazard bunch of little tails she ties it up into, her expressive face and the cadence of her speech.

This isn’t the real Shianni, but it couldn’t have seemed more real if it was. It responds to her so easily, with the same mix of gentleness and intensity, the same forthright heart. Kaila burns for the home she left behind, the people, the family. Does she remember them? How could she forget? Sometimes the memories of what she left behind are all that keep her moving forward, now that the rage has subsided a bit.

This Shianni might not be real, but the Warden can’t deny that the words from its lips are the ones she’s been longing to hear since that day: it’s not her fault, she was just as much a victim as anyone else. She fights tears, holding herself together only by sheer force of will when the spirit disappears, and it takes her a long moment before she can even look down at what it has pressed into her hands. The Chantry symbol on the front of the pendant does nothing for her, but the mirrored back that shows her a vague glimpse of a smiling redheaded elf...she slips the chain over her head. They are inside her heart, and now she can wear them on the outside as well.

She is barely even surprised by the shadowed forms of herself and her companions that spring upon them in the next room, and she fights with the coolest head she ever has. The shadow of Alistair charges at them as the real one never would, leaving Badger free to leap upon the shadow of Morrigan as he’s been trained to do against mages. Once she’s down it’s a quick and easy mop-up. Strategy, as anyone who has ever fought an opponent bigger and stronger knows, is the backbone of a successful team.

And then they are through, and there is an altar there, commanding her - in the usual oblique way of this place - to strip herself bare. Sick and weary in heart and soul, Kaila lacks the patience to put up with one more moment of this pointless shem religious nonsense, and she strides through the flames without pause. There is a sharp flash of pain, but she is through in only a step, seemingly unharmed.

Apparently the Guardian does not appreciate those who are weary of tests and trials and demands in exchange for a pinch of some woman’s corpse, and she finally gets her chance to tear him apart.

It is...less satisfying than she expected.


End file.
